


castles made of laser lights

by janie_tangerine



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Cyberpunk, Alternate Universe - Police, Canon Related, Cyberpunk, Fake Science, Gen, Hacking, Jon Snow knows something, Medical Procedures, The Night's Watch, really i'm shit at that i just hope it makes sense
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-05
Updated: 2017-11-05
Packaged: 2019-01-30 01:11:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,001
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12643095
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/janie_tangerine/pseuds/janie_tangerine
Summary: in which Sergeant Jon Snow's very bad day gets a good turn when a new recruit shows up to join the Watch.





	castles made of laser lights

**Author's Note:**

  * For [subjunctive](https://archiveofourown.org/users/subjunctive/gifts).



> Written for the sixteenth round of got-exchange, mixing two prompts. One was _I'm always jonesing for AUs where the canon events (or something like them) happen but with Westeros in a different era/as a different setting--the basic underlying story but with modern royalty, as a space opera, as a noir, a steampunk or cyberpunk version, etc_ , the other was a picture in the linked asoiaf aus tag which DEFINITELY caught my attention when I saw it ie [cyberpunk sargeant jon snow](http://subjunctivemood.tumblr.com/post/158747144673/crowtrobot2001-cyber-punk-sargeant-jon-snow-by) (I'll link it properly later). Aaand Jon & Sam were in the preferred pairs and this happened aaaand I really hope you like it? I tried. Sorry for the ridiculous science, it probably shows I have a humanities background and that when it comes to cyberpunk I'm more of a blade runner kind of person xD 
> 
> That said: I own absolutely nothing, the pseudo cyberpunk version of the NW in this fic probably owes something to Discworld's own Night Watch even if good for them that Jon has way better work ethics than early Vimes, the title is from a Warren Zevon song and I own absolutely nothing except the plot.
> 
> Also, the fanart that inspired this is by artist [Yan Kyohara](https://www.artstation.com/yankyohara) but sadly he removed it from the portfolio originally linked in the tumblr post so the link brings you to the artist page, the above link to the tumblr post that has it and here it is in its entirety here:
> 
>  

_Isn’t this absolutely grand_ , Jon thinks and doesn’t say, and since he should keep his mouth shut, he lights a cigarette instead.

Who even knows if whatever he says through the comms is private or not – in _theory_ it should be and sure as hell no one from King’s Landing gives two fucks about the Watch, regardless of their job being hardly useless, but he’s still not going to go and insult Lannister and whoever else keeps them underfunded where everyone can hear.

He takes a drag. Then another. Then another.

Then he feels calm enough to actually have the fucking conversation.

“Pyp,” he says, “do I want to know why I’m at Eastwatch and _the entire section is offline_?”

(The Wall used to be _an actual Wall_ , once.

It was destroyed centuries ago.

Then it was rebuilt.

But it’s very, very different than the piece of marble it used to be once upon a time.)

“Er,” Pyp’s voice fills his ear, and Jon doesn’t think it sounds very much _right_. “It’s offline because of a lot of reasons, or so it seems.”

“Can I have a top five choice?”

“Sure. Uhm, all things considered, I’d say that it’s up between… first, no one has performed any maintenance – I mean, actually checking the microchips and see if the materials weren’t getting old – since _way_ before Commander Mormont. Second, with the last funds cut, when Mormont was still around, we only had the necessary money to maintain the Castle Black servers and whatnot, which means that no one’s actually ever been paid to make sure Eastwatch kept on running. Third, we’ve just gotten the umpteenth DNS attack from the Wildlings, yes, always _them_ , and they most probably targeted that server because it was weaker. Fourth, Eastwatch was coded from people who knew what they were doing, and none of us has been given half of the training to keep that afloat, which I’m afraid means that _we_ also haven’t really realized how bad it was getting until now. Fifth, Grenn just sent me a note saying that some wildling terrorist has put an actual bomb in the physical place where the servers were located. Is it enough or –”

“That’s _more_ than enough,” Jon sighs. “I guess there’s not much that can be done about it bar buying new equipment, but is King’s Landing aware that we’re at the point where the only online section of the Wall is _Castle Black_ and if anyone wants to try and steal data from the other ones we can’t actually stop them from doing it?”

“Have they replied to us in the last five years?”

So much for _not talking shit about King’s Landing on the comms_ , but then again Pyp’s not wrong. Since _when_ he’s ever heard from King’s Landing? Not in the last _ten_ years he’s been here, not since he was made Sergeant and not since Mormont passed and no one can technically take his place because the Wall’s Commander should be sent over from King’s Landing and they’ve been ignoring them instead.

Jon doesn’t know why or how they’re sleeping on the fact that the Wall contains _the largest amount of sensitive data in all of Westeros_ , since _all_ criminal records since it turned from a piece of rock into an amount of binary have been stored in there, along with every transcription of all the records from _before_. They’re the database for _all_ police forces in Westeros – if their servers die, police security in the entire continent is compromised to hell and back.

But apparently it’s not _important enough_ these days. Jon figures Lannister has a back-up server or _something_ of the kind. Or maybe ten back-ups safely stored in Lannisport, and so _they_ can just stay here and freeze to death while they try to keep those hackers from copying any information (Jon’s fairly sure they must have stolen a fair amount of it), take in every criminal that gets sent their way as per the old Wall guidelines recite and investigate crimes in the entire area, if they can, _when_ they can, because they don’t have enough men to actually look after the database never mind carrying out actual investigations.

“Fair,” he sighs. “Well then, I’m just going to check if it’s _completely_ dead and then I’m coming back to base. Anything you’ve got to tell me while I’m still here?”

Pyp seems to consider it for a moment. Then he obviously takes pity on him because he says, “Nothing that can’t wait.”

Which obviously means _something_ happened that he should know about.

He closes the call and takes another drag – the cigarette is half-gone by now, and on top of them his fingers are completely stiff.

Right, _fuck_ , someone should check his implants, too bad that they were a patch-up job to begin with.

Jon opens the small panel in front of him, the one from which you can access this section’s data, maneuver its defenses and check the state of the gates.

It’s all dead. He tries a manual reboot, but his skills always were for _police work_ , not for hacking, and it doesn’t work. Then again, if the Wildlings fried the _actual_ servers rather than just launching the usual DNS attack, he’d need people with actual tech skills.

As in, not _him_.

He slams the panel closed, locks it with the standard key and wishes _someone_ just was made Commander so they could hand them Mormont’s and make sure that all the panels were triple-locked with _his_ own, not with the standard.

Then he turns his back to the panel and heads back along the rails to the train that’ll take him back to Castle Black.

It’s not as if they can afford to go around on cars for inside jobs, not when the ones they have are all being used by officers actually doing, well, _police work_ and not worrying about the damned data system.

\--

“So,” he tells Pyp as soon as he walks back into Castle Black, “ _what_ ’s the deal?”

“Can’t hide anything from you, huh?”

“We were in the same batch of recruits, if you forgot.”

“Fair,” Pyp tells him. He sighs. “So, uhm, I don’t want to put too much on your plate, but – Doctor Aemon Targaryen?”

“What about him?”

“He, uh, sent a communication this morning. Says that his surgery went badly.”

“ _What_?”

“Yeah. The eye implants are kaput. He can’t see shit anymore.”

“Oh, _no_ ,” Jon says. The last thing they need is the only medic they have, and the only one who knew enough to work with implants, being unable to do it. Hell, his own implants are glitchy and work horribly because the man is old and didn’t trust himself to handle the surgery on his own, so he told Satin what to do and where to put his hands but since Satin never had that kind of experience – well, that’s why they were a patch-up job. But Jon only needed them to have full motion in his arm after he got a third-grade degree burn all over it while getting Mormont out of the line of fire some six months after he actually took service. He’ll live with it being glitchy. Some others, though, they need them for _urgent_ things, and given that most people on the Watch’s payroll would rather go on with an implant than get a discharge, because it’s still money and a roof over your head, it's a catastrophe if they don't have anyone that can provide that service. Never mind the criminals who’d rather be _here_ than in prison, or dead, or whatnot. “Let me guess, no one in the last batch of recruits is a medic or has the skills to be one?”

“Jon, no one in the last batch of recruits can do _server maintenance_.”

“Well, _shit_. Can’t we send anyone to Oldtown?”

“If you’re willing to pay for that person’s education, sure thing.”

“… Didn’t we get a free pass once upon a time?” Jon thinks that he _was_ offered a free ride to Oldtown when he signed up, ten years ago, and he passed on it because he wanted to catch criminals, not to study medicine, something he definitely was _not_ cut for.

“We _did_. Mind that I said _did_ , not _do_. That’s not been an option since the last round of cuts. Also, Pyke sent a message.”

“What do they want from the Shadow Tower now?”

“To inform you that they can barely keep up _their_ own servers and they have no one they can send to Eastwatch to check the situation, so we’re on our own if we want to pursue it.”

“Do we even have a choice?”

Pyp shrugs. “Well, it’s dead. Same as the other _seventeen_ sections in the entire place. Might as well let it be dead.”

“Yeah, and when the Wildlings go on with their next DNS raid they steal all of the sensible information from the section that handled _contacts with Essos_?”

“… Fair point, but we don’t really have anyone. I mean, I have to look after things here, Grenn’s off investigating that murder in Mole’s Town and anyway he never was that great at tech, Satin’s not bad but he certainly can’t go repair the machinery _physically_ and Dolorus Edd is good at what he does but manually repairing what they blew up? Out of the question.”

Jon tries to think, _is there anyone else who could help out_ , but he can’t think of anyone who’d actually pull that shit off, and the few people who could all outrank him. Sure as hell Inspector Thorne won’t hear _him_ out, and patience if Jon’s basically been the one making sure Castle Black somewhat functions since Mormont died.

“Please tell me we’ve got alcohol somewhere,” Jon finally says, figuring that he’s earned at least a few drinks.

Pyp leans down, opens a drawer and throws Jon an old, half-empty bottle of brandy. “That work?”

“It will do,” Jon says, and goes to sit at his desk on the opposite side of the room before opening it and taking a sip from the neck. No point in pretending they _don’t_ drink directly out of the bottle, all of them.

He’s taken two drags when he gets an incoming call on his computer. It’s Grenn – gods, he hopes at least _he_ has good news. He accepts it, waiting for the static to turn into Grenn’s face on the monitor.

“Sergeant Snow,” he says, mockingly.

Jon rolls his eyes. “Fuck you, too. Please tell me something nice, because this morning’s been only bad news.”

“Well,” Grenn says, “we did catch the guy. Edd’s currently trying to explain one of the girls that he’s not supposed to accept payments in nature, but she _does_ seem to like him.”

Jon shrugs – if only _that_ was his problem. “You can tell him that I’m not checking what you all do in your spare time. So, who –”

“Former client who decided that he could, you know, use a knife on the girl for real and liked ‘em a bit too young. She told him no and you know how that ended. You mind checking his profile?”

“Not at all.”

“Lyn Corbray,” Grenn recites him. Jon looks him up and grimaces as he reads the profile.

“ _Gods_. You said he likes ‘em _too young_?”

“Why?”

“He’s got a few warnings. Apparently he _did_ molest a couple of children, but somehow either he paid his way out or something of the kind because the parents always dropped the charges.”

“Should I send him back to the Vale?”

“If they want him, yes, otherwise ship him to Winterfell. Like _hell_ I want him in here, he’d get bloody murdered and we don’t have that much space in the cells anyway.”

“Fair. I’ll be back tonight. And uh, there’s a guy who said he wanted to join up.”

“Wait, _us_?”

“Yes, he was supposed to get there with the next train but apparently the service stops here for the next couple of weeks. Something wrong with the system.”

 _Of course_ , Jon thinks. That’s the problem with computer-driven trains, if the system doesn’t work then you’ve got no trains.

“Well,” Jon says, “do bring him here. Sure as hell I can’t say no to anyone insane enough to want to join up.”

“Great. By the way, your wolf? You think you could lend him to me more often?”

“Why, did he scare Corbray into confessing?”

“Pretty much. He’s damned useful.”

“See why I told you it was a good investment to keep it?”

(Jon had found Ghost along a polluted river near Winterfell with his brothers, when he was younger. His white fur had looked as gray as Robb’s wolf, for how dirty it was.

It seemed like he wouldn’t pull through, along with half of his siblings, most animals that aren’t robots these days die at birth, but they all did. Everyone thought their father crazy for actually keeping _wolves_ , never mind that it’s technically outlawed, but in the North rules are more lax.

Jon spent a good part of his first few paychecks getting Ghost the necessary implants to come with on the job, among which a fail safe chip that _would_ kill him on the spot if he ever tried to attach a human he wasn’t supposed to, but it never happened and Jon knows it never will, and that’s why he lends him to Grenn from time to time, when he’s not the one out investigating.)

“Fair, fair. Well, I’ll be here with the paperwork and the new recruit by evening. Don’t have too much fun without me.”

“As if,” Jon snorts, and closes the call. At least _that_ went well.

He takes another drag from the bottle and closes it, throwing it back at Pyp – the last thing he needs is being drunk before he has to message _everyone_ who outranks him in the Watch and hope someone _has_ some officer who can fix their server problem at Eastwatch.

He has a feeling it’ll be a waste of time.

\--

It _is_ a waste of time. One hour later and he’s gotten polite refuses from Shadow Tower and _not_ polite ones from Thorne, Slynt and everyone in their unit.

 _Great_ , just great.

He sends Edd a message, hoping that they’re on the service car and can read it.

 _How many times did we message King’s Landing about our funding_?

A minute later, he gets a reply. _Last I checked, fifty in the last two months. Still no replies_.

He sends the fifty-first message.

He doesn’t really have much hope it will be answered.

On top of that, his arm hurts like the Seven Hells, but if he puts the implants offline it’s going to be nigh useless and he can’t afford it _right now_.

He lights himself another cigarette and tries to not think about it.

\--

Grenn is back just after sundown; he leaves Jon a stack of paperwork and then nods towards the door. “Wannabe recruit is outside,” he says, “do you wanna see him now?”

“Sure I do. I mean, it’s not as if I don’t have the authority to take him in or not, right? How does he look like?”

Grenn shrugs. “Admittedly, _not_ much cut for this job, but we’re stretched thin as it is, I guess. By the way, what was the mess in Eastwatch Pyp was talking about?”

“Oh, _that_. The entire station is offline, the Wildlings put a damned hand bomb near the, you know, _actual place_ where we have the servers and unless someone who can hack shows up, it’s staying offline.”

“… Crap,” Grenn grimaces. “Sorry to hear it.”

“Never mind. Pyp’s shift ended an hour ago, if you’re quick you can catch up in the mess hall.”

“Has anyone ever told you’re the _best_ boss in existence?”

“At least someone likes me around here,” Jon snorts as he motions for Grenn to go – as if he those two haven’t been together since _before_ they were officially taken on the Watch, he’s not going to sabotage it just because in theory it’s forbidden. “And send him the wannabe recruit.”

“I left him with Ghost, they’ll come in a minute.”

True enough, recruit _and_ wolf come through the door not long later. Jon understands at once why Grenn said the new guy doesn’t seem _cut_ for it – it’s not even that back in their day he’d have had to lose some weight before being accepted into training, it’s mostly that he looks like a deer caught in headlights and like he _doesn’t_ want to be here at all.

Jon _really_ hopes it’s just nerves.

“Sergeant Jon Snow,” he says, standing up and extending his good hand as Ghost sits down next to his chair. “Please do take a seat, Mr. …?”

“Oh. Samwell Tarly, Sergeant. But – no need for such formalities. It’s Sam,” The guy sounds very polite at least, and he shakes Jon’s hand with both of his. They’re _soft_ , Jon notices. _Very_ soft. He doubts this guy has ever held a gun in his life, which does _not_ bode well for his chances at working here. Still, he’ll see this through.

Sam sits.

Jon clears his throat. “So, Grenn said you… want to join?”

Sam flinches. “Well, uh, I don’t know how to put it –”

“Let me guess, you _don’t_ really want to join but you _have_ to?”

Sam flinches again. “You – are very perceptive, Sergeant.”

“I’ve done this job for years,” Jon says. “But if someone’s forcing you, I don’t really think –”

“Sergeant, the point is – I imagine you wouldn’t know much about, uh, the current situation in the Reach, would you? Political situation, I mean.”

“Not really,” Jon admits. “I mean, I can’t even keep track of what goes on in King’s Landing since they utterly ignore our requests for extra funding, I’m afraid I don’t keep myself informed beyond the North. Though wait, did you say Tarly? Is your father –”

“Tywin Lannister’s most likely new vice? Yes,” Sam sighs. “And – that’s – well, he should go to King’s Landing if that was the case. Which would leave _me_ running things in his stead, except that he never liked me much.”

“He didn’t?”

“No,” Sam says. “It’s a long story. Anyway, he’s set on having my brother succeed, but the law is what it is and if I _willingly_ came here then my brother would be the next in line.”

Jon nods – if there’s one thing he doesn’t miss from life before he joined the Watch, is that the laws in Westeros never caught up with progress, and as advanced and efficient as technology is, he _still_ lives in a world where when it comes to nobles or extremely rich people, only _firstborn sons_ inherit.

Well, given that he was born out of wedlock himself, he has first-hand experience of that, and at least he’s always gotten along with his siblings and he still talks to them regularly. Not everyone is _that_ lucky.

“And if you didn’t?”

Sam shrugs.

“If I didn’t, he heavily implied that should I fall down the stairs at home, no one would come to help me,” Sam shrugs, and Jon has to keep himself from cursing – _what the hell_?

“That’s the basis to _press charges_ , you know that?”

“In the Reach?” Sam laughs. “No. I really doubt that. So – well, I figured I should come here on my own before he forced me. I am entirely aware that I’m not exactly ideal, for a recruit, but –”

“Stop there,” Jon says. “Sadly for _us_ , we’re hardly in the position to refuse _anyone_ , and – well, it’s not like training has much sense anymore. We haven’t had it for years.”

“You mean –”

“I mean that if I accept it, I could take you on tomorrow. But let’s see – I imagine you’re not a good shot, or are you?” Jon _knows_ he’s not, no his hands should be rougher, but given how miserable Sam looks, he figures rubbing it in would just be useless.

“No,” he replies. “I never even held a gun in my life. And I’m not much adjusted to the cold, for the matter, but –”

“Most people who come here from the south aren’t, most get over it. That said – we don’t just need good shots. I mean, you do know that we _should_ take care of the data system.”

“ _Should_? Don’t you?”

Jon laughs bitterly. “Sam, most people around here can barely do maintenance work, a terrorist group just quite literally bombed our servers in Eastwatch, seventeen out of nineteen sections in the system are down for the count and our medic – who already was pushing ninety – has just lost his sight completely, so no one is around to check the implants. At least, when it comes to _police work_ , we’re sort of covered. But no one with any basic hacking skills wants to work here.”

“Wait,” Sam says, “you said – you need people to handle _implants_?”

“Fuck if we don’t. Why?”

Sam clears his throat. “Uh, actually – actually, I’m fairly good at hacking. I mean. I never did anything _wrong_ with it, but it was what I was better about in school. I could take computers apart and put them back together without a problem, and – like, I’m not an _expert_ , but I’m better than average. And I _did_ want to go to Oldtown to study cybernetic implants actually, but according to my father it was useless and he wasn’t going to waste money on any studying that wasn’t aimed to, well, _succeed_ him.”

Jon is about to say that if he actually _wants_ to he’s willing to pay for it with Watch funds, that’s how desperate he is, but then Sam goes on.

“So I kind of – learned anyway?”

“ _How_?”

“On my own. I told you, Sergeant, I’m good at hacking – enough that I might have gone into the Citadel’s servers and downloaded the books. I – it’s not like I ever did _anything_ in the flesh, of course, and it’s all absolutely theoretical, but –”

“Wait a moment,” Jon tells him. Gods, if he _really_ can _work with implants_ , or has an idea of how they work in the first place –

He takes his glove off and grabs at the cuffs of his uniform, then turns it upwards until his entire arm is visible. Sam makes a fairly sympathetic face at the state of it.

“So,” Jon says, “what can you tell me just _looking_ at this?”

Sam clears his throat and moves closer, taking a good look. Then –

“All right, uh, this was burned, wasn’t it?”

“Yes. Op gone wrong when I was barely into my service.”

“Right. Well, it must have been a _bad_ burn, because – from what I see, you must have lost a lot of mobility in it. I mean, the implants I can see, these are used to substitute for nerve endings and atrophied muscles, so I imagine that if they’re offline, you have only very limited range of motion if at all?”

Jon is _impressed_. “Correct,” he says. “Anything else?”

“They’re – not very well-positioned, I’m afraid,” Sam says. “I mean, whoever did the work, they weren’t a medic, right?”

“No,” Jon sighs. “I mean, a medic told them what to do, but he didn’t want to risk performing the surgery himself. He’s – he was old then and as I told you before, he just became completely blind now. He didn’t know if his hands were steady enough.”

“Er, don’t these _hurt_?”

“Well, yeah,” Jon admits, “but it’s not as if anyone around here can fix them, so I make do.”

Sam keeps on _staring_ down at his arm.

“Or do you have a better solution?” Jon asks.

“Uhm, _well_ ,” Sam blurts, “I mean, _possibly_? Like, from what I see, the implants are actually average quality, as in, not _bad_. The problem is that they’re – whoever did this, they put them in the right place, more or less, but not _exactly_ , so they do their job but they’re not really working _with_ the rest of you. If I make any sense.”

“Oh, it makes perfect sense.” He can entirely believe the explanation – Satin didn’t know shit about anatomy, same as him, same as _anyone_ but Aemon. He only did what he was told, so it’s likely that he might have positioned the chips somewhat wrong.

“And – well, I never actually _did_ it myself but I _did_ study where they should go in such a case. If you have a medical file with information about your situation I could try to work on it? If you have, well, a lab or _someplace_ I could do it. If you’d trust me to. Of course.”

Jon moves back and opens one of his drawers, then grabs a folder and slams it in between the two of them.

“Sam,” he says, “there’s like, _no one_ bar Doctor Targaryen around here who’d even have a clue of what you were just talking about. And I really could use a change here because I can’t put these offline when I work, and sadly in this place you _work_ most of your time. Honestly, I can’t care less that you don’t have _practical_ knowledge if it means that _someone_ in here can do this job. Tell you what, this can be your test.”

“ _What_?”

“Read the file. When you’re done and when you think you’ve got things straightened out, we can go to the medical lab and you can fix these things. Or try to. If it works, you’re hired. If it doesn’t – well, I’ll probably send you to Targaryen and ask him to give you some tips or whatnot and we can try again and I’ll hire you anyway because the alternative is staying without a medic and we can’t afford that. Also, if you can hack, well, I need someone to bring Eastwatch back online.”

“ _An entire server_? I don’t know if –”

“We’ll see about that. Read the file. Do you care for some coffee?”

“… Maybe yes,” Sam agrees, and Jon goes to get it, not bothering to cover his arm again – it wouldn’t make sense at this point.

He gets the coffee, Ghost trailing him, while Sam goes through his medical records – he whistles a few times, and Jon doesn’t ask why. It’s not as if he hasn’t had run-ins with fairly dangerous people, after all. Sam has his with some sugar, Jon has it black and looks through Grenn’s shitty paperwork (Grenn’s _very_ good at his job, but terrible at what happens after) correcting what needs to be corrected, until Sam clears his throat.

“So?” Jon asks.

“It’s – well, doable. I guess. But are you sure –”

“It’s not like I can afford to go around like this for much longer. Do follow me,” he says, motioning for Sam to come with. He locks the door after Ghost leaves the room, calls for the elevator and presses the button, heading two floors below ground level.

“The surgery room is under here,” Jon explains. “It has a direct hallway to the medical area, but if there are people really badly hurt we just send them to Winterfell. We can’t afford a proper hospital.”

“Wow,” Sam says, “from what you hear in the South, you’re not _that_ bad off.”

Jon laughs, bitterly. “That’s because no one ever replies to us when we ask for extra funding. Never mind.” The elevator creaks as it stops and Jon walks outside. The hallway is terribly lit, but then again no one’s come to check on the lights in a while, since no one’s had surgeries lately.

Which is a good thing, really, but he knows it’s just a streak of extra-long luck.

He stops in front of the room, puts his hand over the panel next to it and it slides open as it recognizes his fingerprints. He tells Ghost to stay outside, bringing a _wolf_ inside a technically sterile room is probably not a good idea, and then he walks in.

The room is better off than the rest of the floor – it’s clean, after a quick check it looks like the supplies are all there and the cot hasn’t changed. He grimaces – it’s going to be uncomfortable as hell, but still less than going on with a patch-up job in his arm.

He kicks off his shoes and takes off his shirt, turns the implants offline, then goes to lay down on the cot.

“Well,” he tells Sam, “knock yourself out. Supplies and whatever else are in the locker over there, you can open it.”

“Wait,” Sam tells him, “shouldn’t you – I mean, do you have anesthetic? I can’t exactly –”

“I was wide awake when I did this the first time,” Jon shrugs.

“… _Why_?”

Jon shrugs again. “We were out of supplies and I couldn’t afford to wait. Also, it was in the first days of implants. No one here knew the exact procedure.”

“Oh, for – listen, I _have_ to give you some at least locally. Like, to stop you from feeling your arm, it’s going to hurt like hell otherwise.”

“It’s fine,” Jon says, “it’s not like it wasn’t in the job description.”

“No it’s _not_ ,” Sam says, and Jon _does_ notice that he’s not sounding so skittish anymore. Not when he’s in his element, at least. “Never mind, let me look for it.”

He rummages through the locker and comes out of it with _way_ more things on his hands than Satin had used nine years ago. _Well then_.

“Right. Lie down. I’m going to wash my hands and see if I can make this work.”

Jon does and Sam moves some kind of surgical table covered in sterile cloth under his arm – right. He should keep it still. Then he fiddles with a syringe and nods as he turns Jon’s arm around and finds a vein.

“Okay, this should make you lose feeling in here for about one hour. Hopefully it’s going to be enough for a fix, but if it hurts tell me.”

“Fine, but –”

“Sergeant, I guess you have good pain tolerance, but –”

“Jon.”

“What?”

“You’re _fixing my implants_ , no need to be that formal.”

“Fine, _Jon_. It doesn’t mean you have to suffer like the seven hells if you can, like, _not feel it_.”

Jon shrugs and lets him push the needle – indeed, a minute later he can’t feel _anything_ in his arm, and when Sam grabs one of those new computerized scalpels and carefully re-opens the light scars he had just above his wrist, he doesn’t indeed feel a thing.

He also can’t help watching, even if one side of him is telling him _not to_. But the first time he was too busy try to not howl with pain to pay attention to the procedure.

Sam swallows as the cloth gets stained in blood, but then he takes some other small laser- _thing_ from the utensils he had kept apart and uses it to move the first chip he has just over his wrist a bit farther.

“What’s that about?” Jon asks, figuring that maybe if he talks he won’t throw up just looking at it.

“I told you,” Sam says, “it’s not exactly where it should be. These things are old, but they were still made to fit perfectly, especially if they have to be in place of your _nerve endings_.”

“Fair,” Jon replies. “Then again, we picked Satin because he was the one with the most slender fingers in between all of us.”

“Not a bad idea, but still. Not a doctor?”

“He wanted to throw up all along.”

“Well, I _also_ kind of want to throw up, but never mind.”

“Why would you study medicine?”

“If it’s on a _book_ it’s less gross. And it’s _interesting_. Right, this one is done and over.”

Right. He has another ten chips left, though.

Jon breathes in and out, decides that maybe the local anesthesia wasn’t such a bad idea and gets ready for the next hour.

\--

During the next hour, he finds out that Sam will miss his three cats, that he reads more than average, that he was actually a pretty good pianist ( _are you sure you don’t need musicians in the Watch_ , Sam had asked as he carefully moved the fifth chip), and that Randyll Tarly apparently thought none of that was an asset, along with his hacking skills.

Given that it might be the first time Sam does it but he hasn’t – to Jon’s understanding – perpetually damaged his arm and he actually looks like he knows what he’s doing, and patience if he’s checking his progress on one of the holo-books he brought with, Jon thinks Tarly is a damned idiot. It’s not like someone’s worth ends with _not enjoying politics_. Or not looking conventionally attractive, Jon figures.

Meanwhile, Sam is stitching over the second-to-last implant and maybe he doesn’t have _tiny_ fingers but sure as hell he’s precise when sewing wounds closed.

“And,” Sam says, “how about you?”

“How about _me_?”

“I mean, you’re definitely cut for this job, but I mean, uh, the file said you’re twenty-five.”

“I am.”

“Well, these are from _nine_ years ago. Why would you enroll at fifteen?”

Well, he’s observant, for one. “The moment I turned sixteen I’d have put my father in a fairly – _delicate_ position, since he had me out of wedlock. And as I’m sure you know, at sixteen the firstborn is supposed to start shadowing his father, if he comes from a family such as yours. Or mine.”

“I know even too much,” Sam sighs.

“Case is, I was born, er, earlier than Robb,” Jon sighs. “A month, but still. And – I didn’t want things to be awkward or to cause some political mess, especially because I wasn’t even interested in _taking Robb’s position_ anyway.”

“Wait, but your mother…?”

“Never knew her. My father wouldn’t say. He _did_ tell me he would one day when it was _safe_ , but he hasn’t yet. So – I figured that if I came here I’d have just solved the situation and it’s not like there isn’t honor in this job. Even if there’s not much money.”

“Admirable,” Sam comments as he slowly, _slowly_ moves the last chip a bit farther to the right. Then he nods and wipes sweat from his forehead with his free hand. “And I _think_ I’m done. Wait a moment.” He stitches the wound after disinfecting it – now Jon’s arm is covered in stitches and almost completely bandaged all over again, but hopefully it won’t be for long.

“Right,” Sam says, “the bandages are there because you shouldn’t bleed all over, and you should take it easy for the next couple of days, but you should be able to move the arm around. I mean, take it easy because you don’t want to open those stitches all over again.”

“Sounds fair,” Jon says, sitting up and groaning – it _has_ taken just under an hour and he’s getting back feeling in his arm, but not quite enough. “When do I bring them online?”

“Wait until you actually can feel your arm or you won’t know if they stopped hurting. At least I don’t think I fucked it up,” Sam says, suddenly sounding way less in his element than before.

Jon doesn’t comment on it and waits while Sam puts away the bloodied cloth and cleans the scalpel and so on, and as he closes the locker Jon decides that enough time has passed – his arm _hurts_ now, damn it, but at least it’s in the right place.

 _Here it goes_ , he thinks, and presses the small chip behind his ear that brings the entire thing online.

For a moment, he feels nothing. Then his arm glows blue under the bandages for a moment, and then only the implanted nerve endings that run from a chip to the other keep on glowing, as they should, but –

“I’ll be fucked,” he whispers, “it worked.”

“What – sorry?”

“It worked,” Jon says, unable to keep in a small smile. “It doesn’t hurt at all.”

“It – it doesn’t? Oh. _Oh_. I was hoping it wouldn’t –”

“Sam?” Jon interrupts him. “If you _really_ are sure about taking an underpaid job here, and if you’re half as good as hacking as at fixing implants, I’m hiring you the moment I’m back in my office.”

Sam sends him a _look_ , which Jon can’t quite place, but he looks – sheepish?

“What if I told you I was _better_ at hacking than at fixing implants? I mean, implants were all – _theoretical_ knowledge for now. I’m a lot better at computers.”

Maybe, Jon thinks, _maybe_ the universe is starting to repay them.

\--

“What – I thought you were joking!”

Jon laughs as he grabs the contract he’s just printed after modifying the standard Night’s Watch template. “Do I look like someone who jokes about their job?”

“But – I didn’t do training or –”

“Sam,” Jon interrupts him, “ _training_ hasn’t been a proper thing since what, five years? Pretty much. And if you hacked into the Citadel’s database to steal their books then you’re way ahead than the level we were required to reach to work here back when I volunteered. And you definitely know more about what you should be doing here than about _anyone else_ – you can spend a month with Aemon and see what advice he has since you should be doing _his_ job and as far as I’m concerned I’m good. And since no one outranks me in _my_ unit and we’re pressed for men as it is, no one’s going to harp at me for hiring someone competent. Actually, you can go to Aemon’s after I bring you over to where those wildlings bombed our servers and you can tell me if we can do _anything_ about that tomorrow.”

“… All – all right,” Sam says, sounding like he doesn’t quite believe it. “But – are you sure? I mean, uh, maybe I got lucky with you, but –”

“Sam, I’ve been here almost half of my life, I can recognize skills when I see them, and really, I’d trade ten good marksmen for _one_ medic right now. I’d be an idiot if I didn’t take you on.”

Sam looks at him, then at the contract. He reads it – smart thinking, not _everyone_ does. He also reads the small print – _definitely_ smart thinking.

“I know there’s small print about not relationships on the job,” Jon says, “but I always ignored it.”

“Uh, I wasn’t thinking –”

“It’s a dumb rule.”

Sam doesn’t say anything else, then takes a breath, nods, fills all the blanks in the upper part with his personal data and then signs his name under Jon’s. Jon feeds the piece of paper to his computer and moves his elbows on the desk. It feels so _nice_ to not feel like howling in pain whenever his forearm touches the wood, Jon thinks.

“Right,” Jon goes on, “that thing’s going to toss out a badge for you in a few minutes. Provisory, of course, because you’ll have to fill in some paperwork and take proper pictures and so on, but that’s gonna be after I bring you on that trip to check how fucked the Eastwatch servers are. We all sleep here, there’s the barracks on the other side of the yard. You will probably have your pick, it’s large and no one’s sharing since there isn’t enough people to fill up the damned place. The mess hall is at the lower floor. There’s a schedule for cleaning, but you won’t be on it for a couple of weeks until you’re done with the paperwork, seeing Aemon and everything else. Most people from this unit are fairly cool, the ones from Thorne’s and Slynt’s are _not_ so if I were you I’d avoid them, but if they realize _you_ will be the one fixing them up if they get wounded on the job they’ll be civil. All clear?”

“Clear,” Sam says, smiling ever so slightly, and bless, does he look somewhat excited? “So, uh, should I –”

“You should come downstairs with me and Ghost,” Jon says as the wolf stands up and moves next to him. He grabs the badge that his printer just chummed out. “So I can introduce you to everyone else and make clear that you’re saving our collective arses. The food is what it is but the company’s not bad, at least in _my_ unit.”

“That – that sounds lovely, actually. I, uh, I had a bag, but your friend said he’d take care of it?”

“Right. Then we should drop by Pyp and Grenn’s room hoping they _know_ it’d happen, then we can all go have dinner.”

“Wait, didn’t you say people don’t share?”

“Yeah, but I also said I don’t give a damn if you have a relationship on the job,” Jon says as he locks the door. Sam’s face turns kind of red, but he doesn’t look like he has a problem with it.

“Right. _Obviously_. Well, good for them I guess.”

“Indeed. At least someone knows how to have fun. So, should I show you around?”

Sam is still smiling, but not so tentatively anymore.

“Sure,” he says. “Sure, lead the way.”

Jon smiles back.

“Fine,” he replies, pinning Sam’s provisory badge to his shirt. “Then… welcome to the Night’s Watch. I’m sure we can definitely use you.”

“Then I’ll be glad to _be of use_ ,” Sam quips back.

Yeah, Jon decides, he _really_ does like this guy, and if he ends up being the asset he promises to be, even better.

For the first time in _months_ , Jon heads down to mess hall not feeling like complete shit, and seeing that Sam doesn’t look like it either, in comparison to how he did look when he came into his office –

Well, he thinks it does have all the right cards to be the beginning of a good friendship at least, and he’s certainly not going to complain about _that_.

 

 

End.


End file.
